ON THE GOOD LUCK OF NOT KNOWING

“Isn’t it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive-- it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for imagination then, would there?”
-- Anne, in Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery

These sentences, which I read recently, remind me of my good fortune in not knowing everything – in actually knowing next to nothing. On a far-spread planet in a measureless universe, I am simply a speck among the swirling comings and goings of boundlessness -- a fragment floating in the currents of a measureless sea. How I came to think – as I sometimes do – that I actually know a lot, and that wisdom is increasing in me day by day, is an utter mystery, since this universe, this astonishing existence which I am part of, is, in the end, as inscrutable as the origins of this present moment. Anne of Green Gables is fascinated by this breathtaking world, as am I, and both of us know that the cause of the finest surprises and the most satisfying learning experiences is the simple fact that we know so very little. We stand on the shores of wisdom, but that wisdom is a sea that actually knows no shores – that doesn’t start and stop but simply lies around us like light, and our good luck is to be able to be led by that light day after day, and to know that the more we know, the more the light will lead us on.